Content marketing or link building, what strategy will do more to increase your sales?

We all want more sales, but what is the best way to go about it? Most seo will tell you to build a solid natural looking link profile. That's a good plan but I advice you to use at least three to four advertising methods. The reason is simple, nothing works 365 days a year and there will always be customer that you can reach with a certain method. And the reality is, as good as seo is you can't depend on it alone.

Think of your business as a cow, you need to feed it, make sure it drinks and has a roof over it's head. Your business need a solid stream of customers, in this article I will give you a few tips on how to build one. The first think you must understand is the walk in customers are not considered a solid stream. Why? Because you can't depend on them to keep coming back. You need customers to keep buying your products in order to pay your bill. The customers buying from you because your close to them or you where on the way to where ever they where going will never do that for you.

The old way of thinking

our parents used to think that if you open a business in an area with high density of people that's all you need to do. The customer will just show up. I hate to bust your bubble but costumers don't just show up, and in the rare case that they do they don't stay. This is your business we're talking about, this is what puts food on your table you can leave it up to chance.

You need to have a strategy that will get your quota of customers in the door. To do this you must have a well panned advertising strategy.

What will work for you

a link profile focuses on the search volume from Google. It doesn't take into account what your visitors are looking for. If you break it down your looking at a 3% conversion. The reason is that most people getting to your site from Google and information and not necessarily to buy something. About 70% of all you potential visitor are looking for information about what product is best for them, what are the best prices, who gives the best support and so on. This is a good way to build creditability, showing potential customers that you are a leader in your field is a great starting point. But it's going to take time until they buy anything. Rand fishkin fro moz once said that an average visitor will check out his site 6.5 times before he downloads the free trail.

This leaves 30% potential customers. As you know not all of the potential customers convert. So we're looking at about 10% to convert to customers, and that's if you bring your A game. Some businesses go as low as 4% conversions. So your looking at a 1% to 3% conversion aka sales.

The advantage content marketing

while doing the research for you content marketing campaign you get to know your customer on a totally different level. In the following paragraphs I'll explain in more detail.

Step 1 : find out who your customer is

before you even begin to advertise your product or services you need to know who needs them. This is a curtail point, not who wants them or who would consider buying them. You need to find out who needs them. think of going to the dentist, would you like to go visit yours? Not likely. You go to your dentist when you can't stand the pain for another second. That's why he's so expensive. You need to find out who is looking for you like he has an overwhelming toothache.

Step 2 : get him to describe his pain

just like the dentist, you need to find out what is bothering you patient. Ask as many questions as you can. Dig deep and find out what is missing in his life, and how you can fill that void. By the way when you understand your customers pain well enough your descriptions will make you sound like a guru in the field.

Step 3 : let the public know you have a cure

you already know where your potential customers are, now go back there. You have already have the solution to their pain now let them know you have it. The traffic coming to your site from content marketing will be much better then the traffic coming from search engine marketing. You already know them and you know how to talk to them, what buttons to push.

To sum it all up: each strategy achieves a different goal. While links work hard on discovery content marketing works on getting new customers. And wile getting more visitors to discover your site is great, you need to focus more on getting new customers at least in the beginning. Getting in front of people and letting them know you can solve their problem has proven itself both online and offline.

I still advice you to work on your seo, just make sure you decide your time and money wisely.

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